1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to bird proofing assemblies, and more particularly to a device for preventing birds from landing on certain surfaces.
2. Background Art
Birds often try to land on even the narrowest surfaces that they can find on outer structures of buildings, window sashes, sills, ledges, statues, wall ridges, roof gutters, portals, bridges, towers, masts, etc.
This alighting and resting is a nuisance in that the birds, through their droppings, dirty and damage not only the landing surface, but also all outer structures of the building that are underneath.
Due to aesthetic reasons and also to avoid irreversible damaging of the structure material, one is often obliged to deal with frequent and expensive renovation work of the damaged parts of the building.
Besides, such a building is quite often located next to human activities. This is for example the case in cities, where such birds' droppings as well as birds' cries might commercially impact a whole area, whether it be a living area, a mall area or restaurants.
One of the most efficient ways of preventing this nuisance consists in covering surfaces with a device comprising a bottom base support from which extend upwardly birds' dissuasive spike elements.
It can be demonstrated that such a device does not hurt the birds but only prevents alighting and resting.
Such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,552. Unfortunately, the device disclosed therein has at least two drawbacks. First, the spikes are secured in canals by flattening out a portion of each spike adjacent the end to be held in the canal. Flattened out portions are made to extend in only two directions from the axis of the spike, thereby creating a press-fit engagement with the canal along two distinct lines. It would be preferred if the engagement between spike and canal were more evenly distributed around the entire radial surface of the spike to provide a more secure and structurally sound interface. Second, the spikes all extend in parallel from the base, such as straight up from the base in a direction perpendicular to the underlying surface. It would be preferred to have the spikes directed at different angles to increase the volumetric efficacy of the spikes, but in a manner that does not increase cost of fabrication.